The development trend of wireless communication networks is that many kinds of coexisting radio access technologies (RATs) for users. By way of example, a communication network (for example, a Next Radio (NR) system) may be operated tightly with another communication network (for example, a long-term evolution (LTE) system), and tight inter-operation between RATs of the two systems may be widely used. In some cases, the LTE system may help the NR system to broadcast system information since the LTE system is operated in a lower frequency with better coverage.
In the LTE system, a mobile terminal (also referred to as “user equipment (UE)”) camps in a “cell”. Prior to camping, the UE performs a cell selection based on measurements. Then, the UE tunes to a control channel of the cell when performing camping. In particular, camping enables the UE to receive system information from Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN). When registered and if the UE wishes to establish a radio resource control (RRC) connection, it can do this by initially accessing the network on the control channel of the cell on which it is camped. On the other hand, if the PLMN receives a call for the registered UE, it may know the set of tracking areas in which the UE is camped. Then the PLMN may send a “paging” message for the UE on control channels of all the cells in this set of tracking areas. The UE will then receive the paging message because it has tuned to the control channel of a cell in one of the registered tracking areas and the UE may respond using a corresponding control channel.
In the NR system, which is also referred to as Next Generation (NX) system for purpose of discussion, different nodes may transmit different information. For instance, some nodes may transmit System Signature Index (SSI) and/or Access Information Table (AIT), while others may not transmit the SSI/AIT. Similarly, some nodes may transmit Track Area Signals (TRASs) while others may transmit paging messages. As such, the cell camping in LTE may be not suitable for NX. For instance, the conventional camping mode which is statistic is not applicable.